If the state decrees that surgery and hormones for children are “life-saving healthcare”, what will happen to parents that disagree?
As maddening as transgender ideology can be on this side of the pond, the USA stands as a reminder that things could be so much worse. Minnesota’s Democratic Lieutenant Governor has given full-throated support for an executive order aimed at protecting access to “gender affirming care” such as sex changes and puberty blockers. “When our children tell us who they are”, she said, “it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them. That’s what it means to be a good parent”.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. The most important job a parent can have is to protect their child from making adult decisions, particularly when the evidence about the irreversible harms of puberty blockers is abundant. Elon Musk took particular issue, arguing that there was no way we should allow “severe, irreversible surgery or sterilizing drugs that they may regret until at least age 18”.
Flanagan gave her speech wearing a t-shirt adorned with the slogan “Protect Trans Kids” and a large image of a knife. As bad as things are in Britain, I cannot imagine a politician, even one that fully advocates for total self-identification laws, getting on stage wearing that shirt, and insisting that children can make their own choices about undergoing genital surgery, let alone implying that disagreement makes someone an unsuitable parent.
What terrifies me is that insanity has a way of spreading, and US transgender ideology undoubtedly influences Britain’s dialogue. When reasonable people ask me how left-wing feminists have come to be labelled “fascists”, “bigots” and “hate-preachers”, I tell them to look to Washington, where transgender extremists can’t seem to tell the difference between Donald Trump imposing a ban on trans people serving in the military, and feminists concerned about the loss of single sex spaces such as domestic violence refuges, changing rooms and hospital wards.
The Left-liberal press has led the way on this double-speak and hypocrisy. Legislators in Kentucky have passed a bill that prevents children from being prescribed hormones or being signed off as suitable for surgery. It also gives teachers the option of choosing to not use new pronouns for trans-identified students or to call them by their new name, and bars schools from discussing gender identity with students. Trans rights lobby groups have called it an end to “gender-affirming care” and claim it puts children in harm’s way. Really?
Now events in Minnesota are taking a deeply sinister new turn. The Executive Order contained provisions forbidding state agencies from recognising judgements from other states restricting parental rights for seeking “gender affirming health care services” for children.
Where exactly will this end up? If the state decrees that that allowing children access to surgery and irreversible hormones is “life-saving healthcare”, what will happen to those parents that oppose their child’s demands to medically transition? The logical next step would be removal of the child from their parents. These zealots must be stopped in their tracks before more children’s lives are ruined.
